Spotted Artic #2000 (Scania K310UA/Custom Coaches CB60 Evo II) at The Pines around 7:45am heading inbound, displaying 'Special' on the desto with an A3 paper stuck to the windscreen: "906X - Limited Stop" Below that it said which stops it skipped and something about the Eastern Freeway but didn't quite catch it.

Manningham park-and-ride commuters battle overcrowding, lack of car parking.Manningham Leader March 18, 2017.The State Government has no plans to create a second park-and-ride service in Manningham despite angry commuters complaining it is jam-packed well before 8am.And due to carpark overcrowding, the Manningham council is now encouraging commuters who live near bus stops and the park-and-ride not to park at the facility due to frantic demand for one of its 400 parking spaces.Adding to the commuter woes are long queues to get on to packed buses, exacerbated by Manningham being the only municipality in Melbourne with no train or tram options.Donvale’s Georgina Sack says parking spaces at the park-and-ride on the corner of Doncaster Rd and the Eastern Fwy are all gone by 8am.And the 61-year-old said there were now queues 70 people long to get onto crammed buses to the city during peak times, leaving people lucky to even get standing room.The morning queue at Doncaster's park-and-ride last week.Commuters wait in the line for the bus.“I’ve started taking the bus for the last year and it’s been getting progressively worse,” she said.“The buses are way too full, they push you on, they tell us to move to the back, it’s terrible.”Ms Sack said she had emailed the Manningham council and State Government with her concerns in November.Manningham chief executive Warwick Winn said the council was appealing to both sides of State Parliament for a big upgrade for the Manningham bus network given their lack of support for a Doncaster Rail link.He said the council wanted significant improvements in the capacity and frequency of the 907 and 908 DART services, but in the meantime was working with bus operator Transdev to “encourage people who park at Doncaster park-and-ride to consider catching the bus closer to home, if possible”.Mr Winn understands the reason why VicRoads wasn’t actively looking for a second park-and-ride site was because an alternative site had not yet been determined.The only money the State Government has allocated is for a review to look into the problem.Public transport minister Jacinta Allan said the State Government had given $100,000 in last year’s state budget “to look at the infrastructure upgrades needed to support more DART services and move more passengers”.“Future investment in the park-and-ride and bus services in Doncaster will be guided by this work,” she said.Opposition leader and Bulleen MP Matthew Guy said parking issues at the park-and-ride were an “enormous problem” and he no longer parked at the facility.Mr Guy said the State Opposition would push for more parking at the Doncaster park-and-ride or a second facility in the lead up to the 2018 State Election.Narrow miss for V/Line train [a completely unrelated video of motorbikers scattering trackside, with a whistle which isn't VLine].www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/mannin ... c8772a2bd9* From memory, the land put aside for the Doncaster line was sold off by the cash strapped Labor govt. in the 80s.

The State Government has no plans to create a second park-and-ride service in Manningham despite angry commuters complaining it is jam-packed well before 8am.

Just like the railway stations it is designed to emulate. Also, just like any railway station on a Doncaster line if ever built (not likely). Also not like any other bus stop in the area. Including the ones near people's houses the council are trying to encourage people to use. Of course a smart commuter would find a side street near a bus stop one or two (or more) stops before the park and ride and catch the bus from there instead. It is probably closer to the bus stop than the last car parks to fill at the park and ride, and you stand a better chance of a seat without the supposed indignity of being asked to move down the bus.

“I’ve started taking the bus for the last year and it’s been getting progressively worse,” she said.

The whole area is a shambles and getting worse. There are a combination of factors - poor bus priority, a seemingly incompetent operator running the franchise on the cheap increasing the likelihood of unreliability due to minimal contingency spending and poor maintenance and cancelled buses, severe congestion on roads in the area (eg, Fitzsimons Lane) that affects buses as much as any other vehicle, an increasing population due to increased density along major arterial roads ironically justified due to the ability to provide improved public transport, etc.Thank God the greenfields network was canned as that would have made much of the network worse with fewer services where they are currently busy.

He said the council wanted significant improvements in the capacity and frequency of the 907 and 908 DART services, but in the meantime was working with bus operator Transdev to “encourage people who park at Doncaster park-and-ride to consider catching the bus closer to home, if possible”.Mr Winn understands the reason why VicRoads wasn’t actively looking for a second park-and-ride site was because an alternative site had not yet been determined.

I don't get why the first park and ride is so popular to be honest. Every major road in Manningham has a service every 15 minutes or better all day between 6am and 9pm, with a stop every 400m. I can't see that you would save any worthwhile amount of time driving to the Park and Ride. Is there something I have missed? If so, the best place for a second park and ride would be the intersection of Blackburn Rd and the Eastern Freeway, and run short working 906 buses from The Pines or Deep Creek to the city. Build a platform over the freeway if there isn't any land next to the freeway.

Opposition leader and Bulleen MP Matthew Guy said parking issues at the park-and-ride were an “enormous problem” and he no longer parked at the facility.

If he lives in his electorate, I'm not sure why he would drive to the park and ride anyway. Unless he is just trying to score cheap political poin... oh wait...

* From memory, the land put aside for the Doncaster line was sold off by the cash strapped Labor govt. in the 80s.

If the route is as shown then it leaves the Clifton Hill group at the Eastern Freeway and travels along the freeway with the first stop just east of Thompsons Rd in the freeway alignment adjacent to Koonung Park. It then leaves the freeway via a tunnel under Bulleen to near Lynnwood Pde, then under the intersection with Williamsons Rd, emerging to the second station east of the corner of King St and Williamsons Rd. It then roughly follows King St until the last stop at the corner of Blackburn and King St.

As an aside I can't imagine there was much land to sell based on the Melway purple line given how much was in tunnel. Even then, by 1979 it seemed that much of the area was built up and I suspect that there would have been some opposition if the line had been seriously proposed to be built, including loss of parkland.

All of the proposed stations are in the middle of low density housing estates. If I were as cynical as some other posters here, I would suspect that some bureaucrat drew a line equidistant from the Eltham and Ringwood railway lines and considered it job done without considering existing activity centres being built (Shoppingtown opened in 1969) or future activity centres (The Pines opened in 1986 according to Wikipedia although I would question the date given I was riding the 273 there in at least 1985). A line with 3 stations in the middle of low density housing with significant tunnelling and few local facilities nearby to draw patronage from (the closest is Aquarena which would be an 800m walk from the proposed station at King/Williamsons Rds) hardly sounds like it would pass a benefit / cost ratio. The only saving grace I can see from the project is the reservation along the Eastern Freeway to enable a sensible proposal to save some money. Let's kill off the idea once and for all that the original proposal if built would have been some boon to public transport in the area. At best it would have required significant park and ride to be useful to much of the area (with little space available around the proposed stations to be able to provide car parking, especially as the area became built up), at worst it would have had poor cost recovery at a time of declining patronage due to limited population within walking distance of the stations willing to ride a red rattler to the city instead of driving down the Eastern Freeway at 100 km/h, thus killing off any future proposals for some time (eg, Werribee, Pakenham, possibly even Cranbourne).

For all its faults, I actually now agree with Eddington that DART is the best solution given the decentralised nature of the area, despite not doing so at the time. Every major road has a bus service every 15 minutes between 6am and 9pm, most but not all Smartbus (eg, 305). The services either go to the CBD, connect to buses which go the CBD, or are orbital services. It has the best bus services in all of Melbourne as a geographic area. The alternative would be a 20 minute frequency train service from the Park and Ride, or the best option (at supposed considerably higher expense) to Shoppingtown, with connecting bus services replacing the current direct services, presumably running every 20 minutes to match the rail frequency. Whilst the rail part of the journey would be faster, the interchange time required for most of the area not within walking distance would negate this benefit. In fact, for the area served by the current 906, it would take longer as I've shown before. In addition, the issues are fixed far more cheaply than spending billions on a train line - better bus priority such as permanent bus lanes, more buses on busy routes including shortworkings such as 907 buses between Doncaster Depot and the city via the Park and Ride. Or even reinstate the 908 between the city and the Park and Ride if overcrowding at the Park and Ride is an issue outside peak hour (eg, on Saturdays).

Smithplan reverted to the original. The area being served is very diffuse.Use the capacity in the Clifton Hill loop (designed to accommodate Doncaster, despite the phobic and incompetent PTV).Reinstate the curve into the freeway median.Stations at Chandler Hwy and Bulleen.Terminate at either the current Doncaster park & ride, or tunnel to Shoppington, but no further.Buses have to fan to the territory.This is achievable, and useful: a faster exit from the city, then sufficiently weblike buses that driving to the railway station is irrelevant.That was the concept of the Midland suburban service (Perth, WA) decades ago.

Roderick Smith wrote:Adding to the commuter woes are long queues to get on to packed buses, exacerbated by Manningham being the only municipality in Melbourne with no train or tram options.

There are railway stations within about 4-5km of a large chunk of Manningham's population! Sure that might not be the quickest/most direct way to the city, but you can hardly say there is no option to travel by train.

From Doncaster Hill to Box Hill Station is about the same distance as from Croydon Hills is from Croydon Station.

Hardly like say the Northern Beaches in Sydney, where there is literally no railway anywhere around.

Oh and the same should be done along the Monash Freeway too with a terminus at Heatherton Road and Bus/Train interchanges at Jackson's Road, Springvale Road, Huntingdale Road, Forster Road, Warrigal Road, Toorak Road (extend the tram to the interchange) then run it via tunnel next to the new Metro tunnel with stops at CBD South and CBD North then tunnel to a station at Fitzroy (Smith Street) to enter the Eastern Fwy median and stops at the major points including where Doncaster P&R is located.

The rail line at the South Eastern end could connect to the Pakenham line for train sets to be stabled and serviced at the new Pakenham Facility due to open.

Anyway. Just my 2 cents worth

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You can take the boy out of Armadale W.A but you cant take Armadale out of the boy!!!

Graffiti attacks on buses costing Transdev $1 million a year to clean up.Manningham Leader March 19, 2017.A DONCASTER commuter says constant graffiti attacks on Manningham buses are making them look the worst he has seen in 35 years of travel.David Robertson’s complaint comes as bus operator Transdev, which services Manningham and other parts of Melbourne, revealed it spent more than $1 million a year removing graffiti from its fleet.A Transdev bus covered in graffiti. Picture: Kylie Else.And with nearly half its buses housed at the Doncaster depot, its managing director Harry Wijers said its mobile graffiti response team was revising its strategy to deal with the problem.Mr Robertson, a Public Transport Users Association member, said he had seen graffiti and grime on nearly every bus he had travelled on in the past 12 months during his daily weekday commute to the city.“I’ve been using the system in Manningham heading to the city for a long time and I’ve never seen it like it is,” he said.“Every bus has some sort of graffiti on it or you can see the remnants of trying to clean it off.”Drivers who see vandals in action are powerless to act. Picture: Kylie Else Mr Wijers said graffiti was “a huge issue” for the company, with about 80 per cent of its fleet vandalised at any given time.Transdev has 505 buses in its fleet, with 210 stationed at its Doncaster depot.“Basically, as soon as it’s cleaned off, it reappears,” he said.“Even if a driver sees someone vandalising their bus, there is very little they can do about it.”Constant attacks on the buses mean they have to be deep cleaned once a month. Picture: Kylie Else.Mr Wijers said staff cleaned graffiti off buses daily.He said all buses had to be deep cleaned once a month and some required a repaint or a respray, costing $5000 each time.Mr Wijers said the company had CCTV on its buses to try and identify offenders and was also trialling different paint surfaces and interiors to deter taggers.Transdev spokeswoman Kate Rasmussen said drivers were not supposed to leave their seats to engage with vandals but reported graffiti at the end of their shifts. They could also alert TransDev’s operations team to any incidents via internal radio, who then referred the matter to police..A Victoria Police Media spokesman said Manningham Crime Investigation Unit and Transit Police did not have any recent reports of graffiti on buses.Graffiti vandals spray last Hitachi train.www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/graffi ... 6e7b0b9409, with four photos, mainly tags on walls and seat backs, plus scratched windows.

Who else can be blamed? I never saw buses in such poor condition when Ventura and National were running the same services, even the older high floor buses such as the Leyland Tigers, MAN SL200s (including MK1s back then) and Volvo/Scania/Mercedes Volgrens were kept much cleaner. Ventura's buses are still kept relatively clean even today despite having mostly the same models of bus as Transdev. Custom CB60, check. Designline "bubble", check. Designline "square", check. Volgren CR228L, check. SmartBus-liveried vehicles, check.

Some proper bus priority on Hoddle St (full-time bus lanes and enforcement) would provide a better service than the slow and circuitous train service. Services will change from being a single seat ride direct from most parts of Manningham into the heart of the city; to requiring connections at Park and Ride, then stopping all stations through the most closely spaced stations in Melbourne, then stopping for about 5 minutes outside Flinders St each morning, before slowly crawling around the city. That is - if there is track capacity available - and with the Mernda extension fast tracked, and huge population growth in the area, the availability is very limited.

Unless there are really huge amounts of people to be moved, the buses are sufficient and can be made to provide a good service - in fact, the spread-out nature of the bus network means that there is much greater coverage and greater speeds.

Consider that Doncaster SC is about the same distance as Keon Park from the city - but off-peak buses reach the first stop in the city 5 minutes faster than the train - while also providing direct services to a much wider area.

crakening wrote:Some proper bus priority on Hoddle St (full-time bus lanes and enforcement) would provide a better service than the slow and circuitous train service. Services will change from being a single seat ride direct from most parts of Manningham into the heart of the city; to requiring connections at Park and Ride, then stopping all stations through the most closely spaced stations in Melbourne, then stopping for about 5 minutes outside Flinders St each morning, before slowly crawling around the city. That is - if there is track capacity available - and with the Mernda extension fast tracked, and huge population growth in the area, the availability is very limited.

Unless there are really huge amounts of people to be moved, the buses are sufficient and can be made to provide a good service - in fact, the spread-out nature of the bus network means that there is much greater coverage and greater speeds.

Consider that Doncaster SC is about the same distance as Keon Park from the city - but off-peak buses reach the first stop in the city 5 minutes faster than the train - while also providing direct services to a much wider area.

It's time to turn this to a proper BRT- though it would be political suicide to build anything other than a railway line if it was to be upgraded- so you can't win.

Only elevated BRT with artic and double articulated buses would work.

My only other rail based solution would be a APM (automated people mover), think Mitsubishi crystal movers that are used in airports. There would be a DART based system going into city, and one going to St Kilda replacing the 246. APM is still going to be cheaper than heavy rail, and can achieve short headways with little cost, is flexible enough to be able to handle multiple car running. APM infrastructure (viaducts) are in the same scale as an elevated BRT and would be more flexible. With the spur to St kilda, you can also remove the need to widen Punt and Hoddle sts.

Time to think outside the box VicGov.

Pic source: wikipedia

——Any views expressed are do not represent those of any companies and are personal only. Other user ‘CAL’ & 'cal-creativist’ are not my pseudonyms; I am not associated with their posts.

Roderick Smith wrote:Graffiti attacks on buses costing Transdev $1 million a year to clean up.Manningham Leader March 19, 2017.A DONCASTER commuter says constant graffiti attacks on Manningham buses are making them look the worst he has seen in 35 years of travel.David Robertson’s complaint comes as bus operator Transdev, which services Manningham and other parts of Melbourne, revealed it spent more than $1 million a year removing graffiti from its fleet.A Transdev bus covered in graffiti. Picture: Kylie Else.And with nearly half its buses housed at the Doncaster depot, its managing director Harry Wijers said its mobile graffiti response team was revising its strategy to deal with the problem.Mr Robertson, a Public Transport Users Association member, said he had seen graffiti and grime on nearly every bus he had travelled on in the past 12 months during his daily weekday commute to the city.“I’ve been using the system in Manningham heading to the city for a long time and I’ve never seen it like it is,” he said.“Every bus has some sort of graffiti on it or you can see the remnants of trying to clean it off.”Drivers who see vandals in action are powerless to act. Picture: Kylie Else Mr Wijers said graffiti was “a huge issue” for the company, with about 80 per cent of its fleet vandalised at any given time.Transdev has 505 buses in its fleet, with 210 stationed at its Doncaster depot.“Basically, as soon as it’s cleaned off, it reappears,” he said.“Even if a driver sees someone vandalising their bus, there is very little they can do about it.”Constant attacks on the buses mean they have to be deep cleaned once a month. Picture: Kylie Else.Mr Wijers said staff cleaned graffiti off buses daily.Again Transdev spin.He said all buses had to be deep cleaned once a month and some required a repaint or a respray, costing $5000 each time.Mr Wijers said the company had CCTV on its buses to try and identify offenders and was also trialling different paint surfaces and interiors to deter taggers.Transdev spokeswoman Kate Rasmussen said drivers were not supposed to leave their seats to engage with vandals but reported graffiti at the end of their shifts. They could also alert TransDev’s operations team to any incidents via internal radio, who then referred the matter to police..A Victoria Police Media spokesman said Manningham Crime Investigation Unit and Transit Police did not have any recent reports of graffiti on buses.Graffiti vandals spray last Hitachi train.http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east ... 6e7b0b9409, with four photos, mainly tags on walls and seat backs, plus scratched windows.

Word is as of today Transdev are now performing planned replacement services for Metro on the Cragieburn line following Kastoria's withdrawl from their Metro Trains contract, Kastoria will continue to provide emergency replacement vehicles.

That is - if there is track capacity available - and with the Mernda extension fast tracked, and huge population growth in the area, the availability is very limited.

I think the horse has bolted with adding Doncaster trains to the section Clifton Hill to the city. Back in 1969 to the 80s when services were declining and not expected to grow quickly if at all, then there probably would have been the capacity for the 3 to 4 trains per hour that would probably have run. Was there ever a frequency proposed, or just a route?

Nowadays with the extensions out along the Plenty Valley and further housing growth out that way, there will be a much greater need for more trains along the Mernda line. At present during the busiest period, there are 16 trains between 8am and 9am inbound from Clifton Hill to the city so there is probably space for a few more, especially if the express services stop all stations, or express fewer stations (eg, all stop at Victoria Park), or the expresses run to stopping all stations timing but express for loading reasons. As an indication, the PTV Rail Network Development Plan (https://static.ptv.vic.gov.au/siteassets/PTV/PTV%20docs/Metro-rail-network-development-plan/PTV_Network-Development-Plan_Metropolitan-Rail_Overview_2016update.pdf) suggests that in around 10 years time there will be 22 trains per hour traversing that section in peak hour (page 18), 11 from each line.

What about a bus tunnel like Brisbane has from the freeway into the city?

With proper bus priority along Hoddle St and Victoria Pde, I suspect it isn't really needed. The other thing to bear in mind is the inner northern suburbs near Hoddle St and Victoria Pde have many places of employment and traffic generators such as St Vincents Hospital, not to mention connections to buses going to places such as Melbourne Uni, and trams going east along Victoria St. A tunnel would take away access to these. Plus there's the problem of where it surfaces to enter the city - I suspect any loss of parkland would be fought tooth and nail.

Do what Perth did. Run a railway line down the centre of the freeway. I know it's been suggested and looked at countless times but I feel it's necessary

The space is there and that was the original plan. Where it goes from the freeway is the problem. There is little next to the freeway apart from housing and the Park and Ride, and that is not very useful either except for interchange, which will be needed regardless. The problem with DART is not that it doesn't go anywhere useful, nor that it isn't fast along the freeway, it is the lack of priority off the freeway that is the problem, amongst other things. This will not be solved by replacing the 100 km/h buses with a 100 km/h train at great expense. It will be solved by reserving bus lanes along major roads, or building new bus lanes where possible, and better traffic light priority. The main reason for replacing the bus with a train is that the bus has reached capacity and needs a higher capacity mode. DART has not reached that point yet, there is cheaper capacity that can be provided by running articulated buses, or more services.

For all the fuss, the main issue is the 907 gets quite busy in peak hour and probably needs capacity enhancement with more articulated buses purchased, or more standard buses run, including short workings from Donvale or Doncaster Depot. That and the Park and Ride is not the best design with the narrow outdoor waiting area for the Smartbus services outside the building, and possibly needs to be redesigned to give more waiting space outside. I suspect if these both happened, the media articles would likely go away.

The Clifton Hill loop is nowhere near at capacity.Smithplan has been to leave the city by train, get the fast run to Doncaster, and link with buses fanning to the whole territory.Part of the plan: build one station to replace West Richmond and North Richmond; build one station to replace Collingwood and Victoria Park; all trains stop at all stations (like a real metro).Beyond the junction: one station at Chandler Hwy; one at Bulleen (bus interchange); one at Doncaster Rd (the current park & ride, bus interchange); optional, continue in tunnel to Doncaster Shopptingtown. The original concept has had its reservation sold by typical short-sighted politicians, still couldn't serve the territory, and was too expensive.

The bus people want better buses; the tram people want better trams. The problem for both is the slow exit from the city.

A good example of the Smith style is in Budapeste, one of the metro to upgraded interurban tram routes.An early one was the upgrading of Midland (Perth WA) services, with buses fanning, although the bus interchange isn't designed brilliantly (but not one in Melbourne is designed properly).

People have been queuing for the bus before DART came along, and besides do you really expect a seat to be available at the second last stop before the freeway during peak hour?

DART can actually handle the growth as demonstrated when Ventura implemented DART ( and recorded a 120% passenger growth on the 908 within a year), and there is growth capacity available with larger vehicles and increased frequencies to choose from. The problems only eventuated because Transdev lacked foresight in its decision planning, the decision to chop the 908 between the City and Donc. P+R only placed more pressure on the 907(which has to deal with the Doncaster Hill precinct and future eastern golf course Tullamore estate) yet the 908 was capable of being standalone. This decision has obviously reduced capacity and frequency between P+R and City.Also there are less services off-peak between Manningham and City now under Transdev (4x905/6/7+odd 309=~13 services) than previously under the Ventura made timetable(4x905/6/7/8+2x305+odd 309=~19 services)(304 doesn't count as it spends more time in Boroondara council).Donc. P+R only needs a upgrade to include full weather cover of the bus bays, and bus congestion at P+R is a Transdev created problem because of services terminating and starting at P+R blocking bus bay space when P+R is a drive through design.

If they implemented some proper bus priority such as 24/7 bus lanes(with clearways) both north and south bound along Hoddle St and enforced the lanes. Additionally B lights that actually work all the time and actually excluded bicycles from bus lanes(who always block the front of buses from utilising their B light, hmm should teach them their not covered by TAC when riding in bus lanes).

Additionally, that strip of grass in the freeway is not a reservation, its a verge/median strip owned by Roads Corp.

BluDART wrote:DART can actually handle the growth as demonstrated when Ventura implemented DART ( and recorded a 120% passenger growth on the 908 within a year), and there is growth capacity available with larger vehicles and increased frequencies to choose from. The problems only eventuated because Transdev lacked foresight in its decision planning, the decision to chop the 908 between the City and Donc. P+R only placed more pressure on the 907(which has to deal with the Doncaster Hill precinct and future eastern golf course Tullamore estate) yet the 908 was capable of being standalone. This decision has obviously reduced capacity and frequency between P+R and City.Also there are less services off-peak between Manningham and City now under Transdev (4x905/6/7+odd 309=~13 services) than previously under the Ventura made timetable(4x905/6/7/8+2x305+odd 309=~19 services)(304 doesn't count as it spends more time in Boroondara council).

While these has been issues in off peak due cuts i.e 908 terminating at Park& ride. There also issues with overcriwding in peak. Some might remember the fare changes in 2015 saw increase in patronage which resulted in extra peak trips on DART routes added but those extras trip have quickly filled up.Could add more services again in peak but its hard keep doing so at an operator who has no growth in fleet when peak fleet requirment is increased putting lot of pressure on current fleet.

Get The Met wrote:HiI assume MAN Mk II 298 has now been removed from revenue service? Maybe Tulla Flyer can shed some light on its where abouts. Cheers

As far as I know the annual inspection was due. It was off the road briefly getting the a/c fans fixed. It had the doors adjusted. It also had some other minor work done. I took it out of an evening and it was running like a dream. The same night it was changed over in service for no apparent reason. That was over a month ago and it has been sitting in the workshop ever since. It appears to be getting work done to it. As for what? I have no idea. I only hope it will return to service but that's not looking very promising. If it doesn't return I will have one positive. I will have been the last person to drive a MK2 in revenue service. I only wish I could have made it a more memorable occasion.